Letter: Demand firm laws in shooting aftermath

Your recent editorial entitled, "Laws won't end violence," with the subtitle, "Government can't do it," was a monument to the hopelessness sown by modern right-wing philosophy. Once you condemn government as helpless and useless, you are left in a dog-eat-dog Darwinian hell. Fortunately, you are wrong. When Australia, Scotland and Canada suffered mass shootings many years ago, they immediately took remedial action by curbing the sale, possession and existence of assault weapons in civilian hands and have not had similar incidents since.

What your editorial said was that we as a society do not have the courage to buck the commercial power of the gun lobby. You say nothing about the unholy wedlock between the commercial interests of gun manufacturers and marketers and the Second Amendment. The gun merchants have wrapped themselves in the holy protection of the Constitution and, through intimidation and lobbying, have led us directly into tragedy after tragedy. And you, the voice of the community, can do no better than to whimper like Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?"

Not until the leaders of thought in our communities (newspapers included) rise up and shout "enough" and demand action will the carnage diminish. Laws may not end the violence but that was never the goal. The idea of laws is to civilize our society and slowly bring progress and peace out of chaos.